Sorry for the long delay everyone. There's been a lot going on in my personal life, whether it's been confusion about where I'm living or getting a job or everything else. I've just been too busy and stressed and my thoughts too scattered and fragmented to be able to sit down and focus for the 3 or 4 hours needed to do a proper song interp, but I finally have had the chance to get a new one done, and so I give to you my much-delayed song interpretation for "Neverender". I hope that I've been able to push through the stress and strain of life and write a interp comparable to my previous ones.

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I’ve decided to do in-depth analysis’ of all of Coheed and Cambria studio tracks in chronological order so that myself and others might have a better idea of the story line of the universe and how the songs and the comics connect to each other.

I'm going to give a line-by-line (omitting repeated lines) of my interpretation of each song and explain how it corresponds to the comics.

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"Neverender "

“Neverender” is essentially a revision of “Junesong Provision” by Claudio after he resolves himself at the end of “Junesong” to be strong and live long enough to come home and cease Newo’s waiting. As a mental rewrite of “Junesong Provision”, Claudio reveals in this song some very important parts of himself and aspects of his personality to us, such as his acceptance that he is leaving and may never return, along with the fact that as much as he loves Newo, she is not the center of his world. The song is primarily a way to not only setting his own mind as ease as far as thinking of what the future holds, but is also an attempt to set Newo’s heart at ease by telling her his absence is not her fault and that he’ll be back again someday, a better and bigger man than before.


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”When you've gone about things all wrong,
bury them here,
with the lifetime you would never regret.” - (Claudio is speaking to himself, but addressing his words to Newo, as he sits in the garbage transport, the ‘Guile Griever.’ He assumes she’s read the letter and tells her to take her doubts and suspicions about his leaving being her fault and to leave them behind her, as he leaves their world behind, and to move on with a life without him and without regret. He only wishes to see her happy and does not want her living with regrets about what could have been.)

”In savoring sleep,
what do you mean I toss
and turn everywhere?” - (Claudio thinks about his and Newo’s time together, specifically an incident in which he woke up beside her and she told him he sleeps roughly. Much like many of us don’t remember our dreams, when Newo tells Claudio that he tosses and turns in his sleep, he doesn’t know what she’s talking about. He never remembers his dreams, so as far as he knows, his sleep is peaceful and deep.)


”I'll miss you when you're gone,” - (Even though he’s the one who’s left, Claudio doesn’t have the greatest faith that Newo will stay and wait for him. In fact, he even expects her to leave him and he already misses her as he anticipates never seeing her again.)

”in pretending that you meant
the world to me.” - (As much as he loves her and will miss her, Claudio can no longer deny that Newo had to take a backseat to his own frustration and suffering due to the fantasies and dreams that will not cease to leave this feeling of potential within him. It could even be inferred that along with being a buffer between Claudio and the rest of the world, he also inadvertently used her companionship as a way to distract himself from these yearnings within himself. That he fell in love with her came as a lucky side effect. But now that he is away from her and has been effectively immersed in that very fantasy that haunted him earlier has given him the change in perspective to realize that as much as he loves her love for him, he never loved her enough to replace his own frustrations with life.)

”With that you'd call me a liar,
and in the making mistakes
you'll rest incomplete.” - (Claudio expects that Newo won’t understand what he means in his letter and will grow angry and call him a liar for all the times he said he loved her and that she was the center of his world. She’ll reject him briefly and say many things about him and possibly ruin reminders of their relationship such as pictures of them together or gifts given to her by him. Afterwards, when she’s calmed down and shifted anger for concern and worry, she’ll begin to regret the mistakes she’s made [or felt she’s made], both during their relationship and after reading his letter. In this regret and confusion, she’ll find herself unable to sleep peacefully like she did when he was still there to complete her.)

”(I'll be home)” - (Claudio doesn’t literally mean he’ll be at his house. Instead, what he means is that where he’s at now, lost and involved in something much larger than himself, is what he accepts as his new home. He and his own survival is his new home.)

”In graver mistakes; dear mom and dad,
I write you in this letter (I'll be moving on) that states:
when the new day’s begun (new day’s begun)
forget your son when he's out on his own.” - (In a small show of human hypocrisy, despite telling Newo not to regret the mistakes she’s made, Claudio can help but regret the mistakes that he’s committed against his mother and father, whether they be of the usual teenager variety or of having to leave home without being able to wish them goodbye like he did to Newo. He considers this mental letter a poor comparison to a real goodbye letter like the one he left Newo. But, no matter what mistakes he’s made or that they’ve made he just wants them to forget about him and save themselves now that he’s gone, just as he’s trying to save himself and move on past the deaths of his siblings. He knows that they’ll be ok if only they can move on. As for Newo, he worries about her still blaming herself.)

”When the hand reads 7:30
and your night begins to sink
in the short but faster fall,
Anxious but calm retort
to a mirror that frames your face
baring the finest swell.” - (Newo wakes up and the night begins to sink away from the quickly rising dawn of the day. She finds Claudio’s letter, but can’t bring herself to read it. As she tries to get ready for the day, she looks in the mirror and tries to tell herself that nothing’s wrong and that the letter probably isn’t about anything bad, but even as she tries to calm herself down, she still feels the anxiety emanating from the letter and can’t stop the tears from welling up and running down the swell of her cheeks as she cries in front of the mirror. While Claudio doesn’t know she hasn’t read the letter yet, he still imagines a similar scene following her reading the letter.)

”When the day begins to break
like the tears that run across your cheek,
stand straight and imagine you then
in the things and the way they could have been,
when the thoughts, they race across your chin,
here in the Neverend.” - (As the sun begins to come up, Claudio encourages Newo to wipe away her tears and to stand up straight and move on. She does her best to continue getting ready for the day, but despite her best efforts, she can’t stop crying as she thinks about the life she had imagined for herself and Claudio in which their relationship would never end and they’d be together forever.)

[chorus]
”Point your gun in another direction,
now that you've cried yourself to sleep.” - (Claudio compares blame to a gun and knows that Newo, upon reading the letter, is going to blame herself for causing him to leave. He hopes that after she’s had time to be angry and upset and cries herself to sleep, when she wakes up she’ll be able to see things more clearly and understand that she’s not to blame for him leaving. Claudio knows she’s going to be upset for a long time and is going to have many mornings waking up to a wet pillow, but he doesn’t want her blaming herself over this.)

”Here in there after the fire.” - (Fire, when mentioned in the Coheed and Cambria albums, alludes to many things, both literal and metaphorical. In this instance, Claudio and Sanchez both are referring to fire’s ability to destroy the old in order to make room for the new. Fire is both of destroyer of life and the birth-giver of new life; just like Claudio has had his old life destroyed and is now forced to leave it for a new life out on his own.
As for the ‘here in there’ part, what Claudio is referring to in these words is actually the Neverender, or space. In the song, Neverender is actually two separate-but-parallel things: space and the realm of dreams, both of which never end and go on forever. While Newo is there down on Earth, dreaming of a different way of things, Claudio is in space aboard the Guile Griever, heading deeper into his own Neverender now that Ryan’s ‘fire’ has burned away Claudio’s old life.)
[end chorus]


[Note: this next verse actually takes place in both Newo’s and Claudio’s own never-ending realms: dreams (both waking and sleeping) and space, respectively. This section of the song is particularly hard to decipher due to some extremely metaphorical language and complex point-of-view shifts.]

”(Before you walk home) Peace and figuring will he be home again?” - (As Newo finishes getting ready for the day, she decides to go to the Kilgannon home to talk to Claudio. At this point she still hasn’t read the letter, and so Claudio is still very much part of her heart. In fact, one could even surmise that if ‘home is where the heart is’, then Claudio is Newo’s home and when Newo goes to look for Claudio, she’s actually going home. As she walks to her car, she daydreams and wonders if he’s ok, if anything is wrong, and if she will ever see him again.)

”(Signal loss and stereo) With wide open windows will she be waiting for…” - (Even though Claudio and Newo can’t read each other’s minds, it’s as though they are thinking in stereo, since they are both thinking about each other and of their potential of meeting again in the future. While Newo wonders if Claudio will ever come back to her, Claudio wonders if Newo will welcome him when and if he returns “home” to her. In fact, Sanchez goes far enough in referring to their relationship as their home as to refer to Newo’s open arms as open windows.)

”(The sounds surround the overpass) with severed arm placement when the day's dark, old and dead.” - (Newo is so lost in her own daydreams of Claudio that she barely even notices the sounds of the outside world. She’s so worried about him and distraught over the idea of it being over between them that the world feels like all the life and warmth has been bled out of it, just like Claudio’s world was when he ran past the very same overpass after seeing Josie killed.)

”(A dead man against you) we'll write her a letter with long time passing.” - (This line is the most perplexing in the entire song. It’s as though Claudio is finally beginning to meld with the reality of him being something more than a mere boy, i.e., the Crowing. In fact, it’s as though this line is written by the Writer, instead of Claudio himself, which makes me think that Claudio has fallen asleep and has drifted into the dream form of the Neverender. The writer knows that the Onstantine Priest, who is not really alive or dead, but to Claudio probably looked like a dead man, is after Claudio and seeking to kill him. In order to ease Claudio’s mind, the Writer subtly introduces the idea of writing a new letter to Newo so Claudio can tell her everything he couldn’t in the first letter. If this really is the Writer’s influence, then this is how the song started.)

”After the fire
(I'll be home to say I love you and I'll be moving on).
And I'll be bigger.” - (With the Writer’s subtle introduction, we now have another meaning for the fire. Not only does this line refer to the metaphorical fire that destroyed Claudio’s old life, but now it also refers to the literal fire that is going to consume Star IV in the future, even though Claudio isn’t aware of that future event yet. All he knows is that after he survives this new life, if he survives it, then he promises to return to Newo for a proper goodbye before going away for good. He doesn’t understand why, but for some reason he understands that he’ll never be with her again. This is strong foreshadowing and a good example of Sanchez’s skills at planning ahead in the narrative. Claudio doesn’t know why, but he feels an uncanny certainty that if he survives this current ‘fire’ and the future it holds, then he will be bigger as a result. He just has no idea how much bigger.)




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This song is one of the more difficult songs to interpret until you realize two things: One: Neverender refers to Space; both Outer Space, and the space within Dreams, and Two: The entire song takes place either through Claudio in Outer Space or in the dreams experienced by Claudio and Newo, essentially making the entire song take place within the Neverend. The subtle and implied introduction of the Writer actually supports this idea, as this is the only realm in which he can easily influence Claudio until ‘The Light and the Glass’ when he begins to break through the Willing Well. The Writer knows that Claudio can’t do his job and truly become the Crowing while being overly concerned with Newo. Claudio needs to be focused on saving his parents, and as a result saving Heaven’s Fence. So, in order to set Claudio’s mind at ease so he can focus on the path planned for him, the Writer gives Claudio the idea that he (they) will write Newo a promise that it’s not her fault and that they’ll see each other again. This song is a result of Claudio dreaming about that promise.

I’ve decided to do in-depth analysis’ of all of Coheed and Cambria studio tracks in chronological order so that myself and others might have a better idea of the story line of the universe and how the songs and the comics connect to each other.

 

I'm going to give a line-by-line (omitting repeated lines) of my interpretation of each song and explain how it corresponds to the comics.

 

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<b>"Junesong Provision"</b>

 

 

            “Junesong Provision is probably the easiest song by Coheed and Cambria to interpret. It’s obvious that most of the song is from the viewpoint of a frightened and suicidal Claudio and that it is most likely in the form of a note that is being verbally recited as it is written. The theory of it being a suicide note written by Claudio has been around since almost the day the album was released, so the only real challenge in the song is placing each line and verse into the context of this well-fit theory and then to divine the narrators of the parts of the song that are obviously from someone other than Claudio.

            In general, I feel that the letter is merely a goodbye letter to Newo and the more emotional and pained lyrics are actually thoughts left unwritten by Claudio. As to this and how it works, I think the song overall is Claudio going over what he’s already written and left her now that he is on the run. The letter has already been written, so the song does not fit entirely within the bounds of the letter and thus should not be interpreted as the letter verbatim. I personally feel confident and satisfied with my own personal interpretation of this song and how it fits into the canon of the story, comics, and the overall timeline of events.

 

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<b>”Good morning, sunshine, awake when the sun hits the sky.”</b> - (Claudio hasn’t slept and is still hiding and on the run when the sun comes up. We know that he left Newo’s house at 5:03am, so, being on foot, he probably is only a few mile away by now, hiding in an alleyway as the sun comes up. As he sings this, Newo is just reading his letter, which also opens up with “Good morning sunshine”.)

 

<b>”Look up the sounds that surround the day you died.”</b> - (Claudio thinks about his sister Josephine as he runs. He’s in the city, hearing the sounds of a day that has continued on uninterrupted despite Josie’s death earlier that day.)

 

<b>”She waits for me outside near a hole in the ground”</b> - (Since Claudio can’t possibly know of Ambellina’s presence or arrival yet, we can assume this also refers to Josephine. He doesn’t expect to live long, so he imagines her ghost waiting for him near her grave, with his freshly dug beside her own.)

 

<b>”In the one way thinking you might get the upper hand.”</b> - (Claudio ponders if maybe Josephine isn’t better off dead. Maybe by being dead she’s got the upper hand, since she no longer has to worry about running for her life or dealing with the suffering that comes as a prerequisite to living.)

 

<b>”Dear Newo Ikkin, how's Apollo been treating you?

Has he been a good boy since the day I left?

Give him my love and a sweet kiss for his head.”</b> - (Apollo is a Dalmatian dog that Claudio gave Newo as a puppy. As he looks at a photograph of himself and her that he took from her bedside nightstand, he thinks about the happy times they’ve had and the ones they’ll never have again. Apollo is Claudio’s only lasting gift of love left to Newo, so he hopes that Apollo is good to her and that she will love him since Claudio will never come back.)

 

<b>”Cause I won't be coming home, when you get this I'll be dead.”</b> - (As Claudio writes this while hiding, he also considers just how much of his life is destroyed and the fact he himself may die very soon. Thinking that the Priest killed his entire family, he has trouble coping with the idea of living without them, so he considers killing himself before the Priests can get a hold of him.)

 

<b>”Norris and Larry,

Gloria to nowhere.”</b> - (At the same time as Claudio is writing his note, across the Keywork, as detailed in “Delirium Trigger”, his parents are onboard the Gloria Vel Vessa, alongside Captain Norris Henderson and Lieutenant Larry Goswell, as they are caught in the tractor beam of Admiral Crom’s battle cruiser. They try to reach Jesse aboard the Grail Arbor, but though the intercoms are not working.)

 

<b>”Sir, I think you'd better take my hand

And pray we'll make this one out alive.”</b> - (Cambria talks to Coheed, asking him to hold her hand and have hope as they try and take back control of the Gloria Vel Vessa.)

 

<b>”Captain! We've lost all systems control!”</b> - (In a fit of rage, Cambria destroys the core power component that Coheed was trying to rewire in order to return control of the ship to them. When Cambria destroys it they lose any and all control of the ship.)

 

<b>”Then, Son, I'll see you in my sleep.”</b> - (Since they can’t stop the ship under its own power, they decide the best way to stop it, and themselves, from reaching Paris: Earth is to blow it up with them on it. As they begin preparing the explosives, Cambria secretly says goodbye to her son Claudio and promises that she’ll eventually see him on the other side of death.)

 

<b>”Is it all you've shared with them that makes us paranoid?”</b> - (Now we switch to Star 4, where the Prise are beginning preparations to send Ambellina as Claudio’s guardian. The Prise have a reputation of being extremely paranoid, so it is fitting that the leader of the Prise, their queen, per say, is in fact named Paranoia. As she sends the orders to Ambellina, she wonders if it is in fact Man’s own violent and power-hungry similarities to the Mages that makes the Prise so paranoid. If Man and Mage share so many of the same attributes and tendencies, is one really better than the other?)

 

<b>”Is it the dream that one day you might be something you're not?”</b> - (Paranoia ponders if the prophecy of the return of the Crowing, the only being more powerful than Prise or Mage, is what makes the Prise so paranoid of Man. Since the Crowing is prophesied to be born of Man, then that means Man alone brings not only the Fence’s best hope for salvation, but also its greatest threat of complete destruction. As Claudio and Coheed both dream of being something inhuman and Man as a whole dreams of one day besting the Mages, the Prise continue to watch with wary wide eyes.)

 

<b>”Is it the dreams that make us real?”</b> - (Paranoia thinks about Coheed and the IRO-bots, once thought the be the saviors of Man, now revealed to be the Keywork’s biggest threat. Inside, they are not human. They are cyborgs, not quite machine but not quite truly alive. And yet, just like Man, they have dreams. Do those dreams mean that they are in fact the same as humans? Are they really alive? Is the life they feel inside themselves real? What makes it real? Does the presence of dreams make Coheed and Cambria human? Do their dreams save them from being nothing more than monsters?)

 

<b>”We'll miss you and wait for you when you come.”</b> - (Back on the Gloria, Cambria and Coheed ready to set off the explosives. They both silently wish Claudio goodbye and promise to wait for him on the other side.)

 

<b>”Wrong way, right way.

Bad luck, what God has been giving me?

Wrong way, right way.

Bad luck, you've got to be kidding me”</b> - (Back on Hetricus, Claudio thinks about all the horrible things that have happened to him. He wonders if he’s done the right thing by running away or if maybe she should’ve done things differently. As he thinks of all he’s lost and wonders how he’s supposed to live through this, he becomes frustrated at God for allowing something so horrible to happen to him.)

 

{During the break in the previous verse, we here someone reading a contract of some sort. The only words we can really hear clearly are “Your time was not included in the contract” and the words “time”, “contract” and “supervisor” after that. There are many theories as to what this is, including a prenuptial agreement, a will, a wage contract, or a labor form. I personally believe is sort of like a metaphorical conversation between Death and Claudio discussing the terms of Claudio’s death and the fact that Claudio wants to die now and since Death has yet to lay down a time for Claudio’s death, that means Claudio can choose to die any time he wishes. Claudio says he wants to die now and Death advises Claudio to talk to God, Death’s supervisor, about other options aside from Death. So, Claudio does this and prays to God. Receiving no answer, Claudio again considers his bad luck and his foolishness in even thinking God would offer any help. He then returns to writing his goodbye note, which is steadily becoming a suicide note.}

 

<b>”I've spent so long sitting down here,”</b> - (Hiding like he has, in alleyways and abandoned buildings and other similar places, Claudio’s had time to think about his current situation and how hopeless he feels.)

 

<b>”Paper cut my heart in half and discard the evidence!”</b> - (As he writes this letter, he pours his heart into. He compares sending the letter to literally sending Newo half of his heart that he cut off with the very paper he’s writing on. He asks her to read the letter in understand of just how much of his heart went into. He offers that much of himself as a farewell gift to her. He asks her to throw away or burn the letter after she’s done with it in order to destroy any evidence of having contacted him.)

 

<b>”When it's yours, come send me the last half.”</b> - (Claudio is essentially asking Newo to keep her half of his heart, i.e., her memory of him, alive inside of her and to return it to him after her time has come and they meet again in the afterlife. This is the first reference Claudio makes to asking Newo to stay true to his love,)

 

<b>”Dowsed in kerosene

In a torched blazed blood bath.”</b> - (As the “Guile Griever” lifts off in a blazing roar, Claudio reveals that he plans to kill himself and fantasizes of dying as some martyr going out in a violent blaze of glory.)

 

<b>”When boy sets fire, God knows you've lost

At a cost that has no price.”</b> - (Claudio is essentially telling God and everyone around him that when he goes, they’ll never know just what they’ve lost. He doesn’t realize just how true his words are, for if he dies, then so too dies the Keywork’s last chance for salvation. The cost would be unthinkable as millions of lives will be lost alongside his.)

 

<b>”When you've purchased guilt,

Stand at attention

And make sure you know the lines and yourself.”</b> - (Reaching the height of his suicidal rage, Claudio lashes out at God and the Prise, who he feels were supposed to be his protectors. He feels that they have failed in their duties as laid out in God’s Riddle and that all his suffering is their fault. He tells them that when he succumbs to his misery and dies that they should think about themselves and where they failed and accept the guilt of their failures.)

 

<b>”Yet you'd say, "I'll be home alone again, waiting."</b> - (Suddenly, amidst all his emotional turmoil, Claudio thinks back to Newo once saying that she’d always be there for him, that she’d always wait for him. He imagines that if she could talk to him now, she’d promise to wait alone at home for his eventual return. This thought of Newo’s love and faith to him brings him out of his suicidal urges.)

 

<b>“Wait for me, alright?

I'm still a boy down there.”</b> - (As the Guile Griever leaves the planet, Claudio throws the note in with the rest of the trash and looks out the window of the garbage hold and watches him home drift away. He decides to try and stay alive long enough to return to home and to Newo. He silently asks Newo to promise to wait for him down there where he is still just a boy who’s gone missing.)

 

<b>”When you want to promise me that.”</b> - (Much like a silent contract, or provision, Claudio asks Newo to promise him that she will wait for him to return to her. This is pretty much equal to him asking her to marry him, since he doesn’t know how long he’ll be gone and how long she’ll have to stay faithful to her love of him.)

 

<b>”(To drive down. Where's Wednesday? Where's Wednesday?)”</b> - (In the back of his mind, Claudio wonders why his life has turned upside down all of a sudden. He just wishes that he could go back to last night and he could just have his Wednesday back to normal. Just like Patrick,  all Claudio wants is his Wednesday back.)

 

 

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Many wonder about the title of the song and how it relates to the subject matter and the characters involved, as well as just what the hell a “Junesong Provision” is. Well, a provision is basically a type of contract that lays out certain conditions for agreement, such as the legal paperwork that must be filled out when one gets married. Also, it is known that June is the most popular month for weddings to be scheduled, so it is my own personal theory that this song is actually a kind of unofficial marriage proposal from Claudio to Newo. While he’s not literally presenting a ring or the paperwork to her, by the end of the song he’s essentially proposing that she promise to love him for the rest of her life and to wait for him to one day return to her, even if that day only comes when they’re both dead. In essence, this is like him asking her to marry him. As romantic as this sounds at first glance, it’s actually very selfish of him, since he’s essentially asking her to give him all her heart in exchange for half of his laid out on paper.

In the comic, ‘Junesong’ is Claudio’s nickname for Newo, the same as ‘Grover’ is her nickname for him. While I feel these are canon and relevant, I feel that the lyrics in the comics are not always literal parallels of their placement in songs and the timeline, but are instead general indicators of the overall subject matter that they referred to while in-song. As such, my reasoning for ‘Junesong’ as a title still stand, but the comic has luckily reaffirmed my interpretation of the letter being a goodbye letter to Newo. While much of it was suicidal, it seems obvious that Claudio left those thoughts unwritten and only gave Newo a cryptic goodbye letter.